Sailing Alone Around the Room: New and Selected Poems by Billy Collins
Sailing Alone Around the Room: New and Selected Poems
by Billy Collins
I first heard Billy Collins read at my conference in 2008. I hadn’t laughed so hard in a long time. I saw him again last year at the National Book Festival. And I’ve listened to an audio recording of one of his readings as well. But I’d never sat down to actually read a whole book of his poetry. I found this book at the Book Thing of Baltimore, Inc. and immediately grabbed it. Mine! It’s been sitting on my Mt. To Be Read shelves for at least a year now, so it was time to finally read it.
Billy Collins was Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001-2003 and has published many collections of poetry. These are poems from four of his collections as well as some brand new poems. In all, there are 96 poems in the collection. The subject matter is varied from observations, fantasy/imagination, location, etc. Some paint a picture, others made me think, and others made me laugh out loud in the middle of a doctor’s waiting room. His writing has a rhythm and flow that is alluring and attractive. And many of the poems make you discover something new you hadn’t known or hadn’t noticed.
Though some of my favorites weren’t in this particular collection, I still really enjoyed the collection as a whole. Something I wouldn’t have gotten by reading any of his other collections was the sense of him growing and changing over the years. There was a stretch in the middle when his poems were more serious and lengthy and other times they were short and clever. It was neat watching his writing style change but keeping his voice consistent throughout the whole collection. I didn’t make a list of which poems I liked the best, which I sort of regret now. But each poem had something good to offer me, so I’m grateful I read them all. It was also neat that I’ve seen him in person a few times so I could hear his voice in my head as if he were reading these to me.